And to further elucidate or obfuscate, depending on you viewpoint:
Dirty little secrets of USA gasoline refining (and our political protectors):
The problem with ethanol is it's affinity for water. Actually, that's only a problem when you decide to mix it with gasoline, which hates water (you could run your engine on 160 proof apple brandy, but the USA government frowns on untaxed "drinkin' liquor").
The warnings I provided are "worst case", but are certainly not outside the realm of possibility. The key is to turn over the gasoline regularly. In other words, drive your vehicle in the winter, if for no other reason than to enjoy the pastoral countryside in a different season for something completely different. Stabilizers help by adding a component to keep the water (and ethanol) soluble in gasoline. They don't really prevent water from entering the mix.
Which brings up an important point - gasoline is a mix of hydrocarbons from C4 through about C10. Octane is a measure of the fuel's resistance to spontaneously combusting when compressed until sparked. Branched hydrocarbons resist better than straight-chains. Ethanol has a high octane number also.
As I tend to disagree with the general advice to buy the highest octane gasoline. It may also have the highest ethanol content, with a higher affinity for humid air. USofA gasoline is usually sold under the warning "may contain up to 10% ethanol", but you have no idea how much is really there. Refineries make money by stretching octane-barrels with the lowest cost component. And unless you're making your own fuel, you won't find out - the service station probably doesn't know, either.
Enough engineering, to the meat of the matter - turn over your fuel. There are other reasons to do so, besides ethanol - winter gasoline (yes, Virginia, different formulas for different seasons & areas of the country-politician driven like daylight saving time, global warming, yellow fire engines, etc etc) contains more butane than summer, which will boil off during warm weather, and your fuel may look like varnish. The larger swings between low and high temperatures (spring and autumn) will work more water into your fuel and boil off more light (and high octane) components.
Stabilizers help but are not a panacea. And ethanol isn't the only oxygenate put into gasoline.
One could install a Micro Fueler in their garage, it produces E100 ethanol which not being "drinkin liquor" won't create tax issues with local nor federal government entities. If you're interested you can read about the
Micro Fueler system or look at purchasing a
Micro Fueler System. You'll notice in the article that E100 ethanol, (being pure alcohol) can be mixed with water at 70/30 ratio still maintaining enough octane levels for most vehicles.
OR you can use use any number of products to prevent or eliminate water in fuel which produces ice crystals and blockages.
The will range from a small containers of a few ounces of isopropyl alcohol (they come with trade names of De Icer or Iso-heet ) to a gallon or two of wood alcohol (methanol) in a 1000 gallon heating oil reservoir. In both cases they will work in minutes. (Methanol is actually more effective. They will equally solve water problems in a tank..but are a quick fix as they last only as long as the fuel they
were mixed with. It can be added a bit with each fill-up or when the lines freeze.
HOWEVER, there is an ingenious season-long solution that folks up north use that really, really works (sorry, Ron) perfectly. They are called Water Eliminators.
These are small open mesh plastic tubes that contain pieces of water adsorbent polymers (that look a bit like crystals). They will attract and absorb water in fuel..even emulsified water in any type of fuel.
They come (in a range of sizes) with long strings and, for example, on a snowmobile one simply attaches the other end of the spring to the cap.
Water Eliminator
Water 7
Have phun